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Information for Authors

 

Is TWEB the right place to publish your work?

ACM Transactions on the Web (TWEB) welcomes original, unpublished research submissions which are not under consideration for publication elsewhere. The topic of the submission should fall within the scope of TWEB's charter and topic areas described on the About page.

Publication of an enhanced version of a previously published conference paper is possible if the review process determines that (a) the revision contains significant enhancements, amplification or clarification of the original material and (b) there is a significant additional benefit to be gained from journal publication. Any prior appearance of a substantial amount of a submission should be noted in the submission letter and on the title page; a footnote on the first page should indicate that the submission is an extended version of the earlier paper(s). A separate file should describe the differences between the original conference paper and the new submission; this file should be uploaded according to the directions in the Manuscript Central paper submission system. The authors should also upload an electronic version of the earlier publication(s) according to the directions in Manuscript Central. Authors are encouraged to read the ACM Policy on Prior Publication and Simultaneous Submissions as well as the ACM Policy and Procedures on Plagiarism (including self plagiarism). TWEB forbids authors from submitting papers which would be under consideration simultaneously for publication in both TWEB and another copyrighted forum.

Submissions should be well positioned within the Web-related literature, showing how the work reported relates to existing work. Relevant papers in the Web-related literature should be cited - if there are few of these then the submission may not be relevant for TWEB (see the Related work bullet point below). Submissions should also have a substantial evaluation section.

Formatting and Preparing your Manuscript

TWEB requires that articles be submitted electronically. Articles must follow the "Small Standard Format" described in the ACM formatting guidelines. Submissions must be accompanied by a cover letter containing that includes:

  • Suggestions of three Associate Editors who seem most suitable to handle the submission, and
  • Disclosure of possible conflicts of interest with Associate Editors.

Submissions that do not conform to these guidelines will be returned to the authors for correction.

Additionally, to ensure proper indexing, classification, retrieval and dissemination, authors must include the following in the manuscript:

  • Author names and affiliations: Authors' names should be given without titles or degrees along with the names and addresses of the authors' institution. Identify the contact author for co-authored work.
  • Abstract: The abstract should concisely state the objectives of the work, summarize the results, and give the principal conclusions, but omit future plans and citations.
  • Content indicators: Categories and subject descriptors should be chosen from the Computing Reviews Classification Scheme.
  • Related work: Submissions should cite relevant Web-related research, showing how this work is related to and differs from prior work. Relevant research can occur in many sources, such as The Web Conference and WSDM conferences and other SIGWEB conferences, other ACM journals, and many other venues.
  • Citations to relevant literature: Citations should be placed in the body of the submission.

The review form that reviewers will complete when reviewing your submission may assist you in preparing it.

NOTE: The ACM Digital Library hosts ancillary material for a published paper on its web site. This material, an online appendix that does not appear in the print journal, is linked to and accessed from the online table of contents. For example, authors could provide hypertext and/or XML versions of their papers, or animations, or any other appropriate technology. Authors that wish to use this option should attach such material as an appendix to their submission and indicate in their cover letter that this material is intended to be ancillary material included in the Digital Library, and how it is intended to be accessed. All ancillary material should be free from viruses.

Submitting Your Manuscript

Please submit papers via Manuscript Central, https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/tweb

You should receive an email acknowledgement that the submission has been successfully received. If you fail to receive such an email acknowledgement, please contact the journal administrator ([email protected]).

The Review Process

When we receive your manuscript and verify that it can be read and is within the scope of the journal, an Associate Editor will take responsibility for handling the review process. The Associate Editor will assign the article to 3-4 reviewers, study the reviews that are returned, and make an overall recommendation to the Editor-in-Chief.

A manuscript submitted for the first time might be accepted subject to minor revisions or rejected, but many published articles first receive a "Revise and Resubmit" recommendation. If this happens, it may be very worthwhile to persevere, revising the manuscript to fix problems and clarify misunderstandings. Resubmissions should be accompanied with a cover letter that explains in detail how the comments of the reviewers were dealt with.

The Editor-in-Chief or Associate Editor may also decide to desk reject a submission, without sending it out to reviewers, if examination of the manuscript shows that the likelihood of acceptance is extremely low.

ORCID Requirements

ACM requires that all accepted journal authors register and provide ACM with valid ORCIDs prior to paper publication. Corresponding authors are responsible for collecting these ORCIDs from co-authors and for providing them to ACM as part of the ACM eRights selection process. For journals using the ScholarOne submission system, the submitting author will be required to provide their own ORCID upon submission. Authors are strongly encouraged, but not required, to include ORCIDs for all authors in their source files.  Please note: ACM only requires you to complete the initial ORCID registration process. However, ACM encourages you to take the additional step to claim ownership of all your published works via the ORCID site.

ORCID provides a persistent digital identifier that distinguishes you from every other researcher through integration in key research workflows such as manuscript and grant submission and supports automated linkages between you and your professional activities - ensuring that your work receives proper recognition. This requirement will also enable ACM to provide improvements to the normalization process of ACM Digital Library author profile data, aid in the detection of undeclared conflicts of interest and other publications-related misconduct in ACM Publications, assist with the implementation of ACM Open, and offer a host of other researcher benefits to ACM authors and the scientific community.

Before submission, the corresponding author should register for an ORCID.  Your co-authors should also create their individual ORCIDs at that time and add them to their accounts in the manuscript submission system. Otherwise, you will need to enter them manually into the ACM rights system upon paper acceptance and before publication in the ACM Digital Library. Simple instructions for complying with this mandate are provided inside the ACM eRights system.

ORCID information for all authors will appear on the article’s page in the ACM Digital Library. If ORCIDs are included in an article’s source files, they will also be linked in the published output.

The ACM ORCID FAQ should answer many of your questions.

ACM Policies

As a published ACM author, you and your co-authors are subject to all ACM Publications Policies.

ACM Policy on Authorship

The ACM Policy on Authorship and the associated list of Frequently Asked Questions cover the criteria for authorship and for submission, as well as acceptable and unacceptable authorship practices.

ACM Conflict of Interest (COI) Policy

The ACM Conflict of Interest (COI) Policy describes what a COI is, who is responsible for being aware of such conflicts, how to manage COIs, and how to report violations.

ACM Peer Review Policy

ACM recognizes that the quality of a refereed publication rests primarily on the impartial judgment of their volunteer reviewers. Expectations of reviewers and ACM, including key topics such as confidentiality, the use of large language models in the peer review process, and conflicts of interest, can be found in the ACM Peer Review Policy and its associated list of Frequently Asked Questions.

ACM Publications Policy on Research Involving Human Participants and Subjects

All authors conducting research involving human participants and subjects must meet appropriate ethical and legal standards guiding such research. These requirements are detailed in the ACM Publications Policy on Research Involving Human Participants and Subjects.

Templates

Manuscripts accepted for publication in any ACM publication must be formatted using the ACM authoring template. Submissions must also use the ACM authoring templates. ACM style files will closely approximate the final output, enabling authors to judge the page-length of their published articles.

ACM authoring templates and detailed instructions on formatting can be found at http://www.acm.org/publications/authors/submissions. For both Word and Latex technical support, contact [email protected].

ACM Computing Classification System (CCS)

If your paper has been accepted, please read the HOW TO CLASSIFY WORKS USING ACM'S COMPUTING CLASSIFICATION SYSTEM for instructions on how to classify your document using the CCS and insert the index terms into your LaTeX or Microsoft Word source file. Providing the proper indexing and retrieval information from the CCS provides the reader with quick content reference, facilitating the search for related literature, as well as searches for your work in ACM's Digital Library and on other online resources.

Author Rights

ACM authors can manage their publication rights in either of the following ways:

  • A license granting ACM non-exclusive permission to publish—allowing authors to self-manage all rights to their work by choosing to pay for perpetual open access from the ACM Digital Library.
  • A publishing license agreement granting ACM exclusive publication rights—by granting ACM the right to serve as the exclusive publisher of a work and to manage ongoing rights and permissions associated with the work, including the right to defend it against improper use by third parties. (This license is roughly the equivalent of ACM’s traditional Copyright Transfer Agreement except that the author continues to hold copyright.)

As of January 2023, per decision of the ACM Publications Board, the traditional Copyright Transfer Agreement option is no longer available for ACM authors.  ACM will continue to defend all ACM-published works against improper use when allegations of publication-related misconduct are brought to light.  For more information please refer to this article in The Blue Diamond.

Additionally, ACM authors may post all versions of their work, with the exception of the final published "Version of Record", to non-commercial repositories such as ArXiv. See the ACM Author Rights page for additional information.

Learn more, including about posting to pre-print servers and institutional repositories, by visiting the ACM Author Rights page.

Open Access

ACM has made a commitment to become a fully sustainable and Plan S compliant Open Access (OA) scholarly publisher within approximately five years. ACM offers a number of ways to achieve this goal, including Hybrid OA, Gold OA, and the ACM OPEN program.

Most ACM journals, with the following exceptions, are Hybrid OA.  ACM Gold OA journals are:

Click here to view the Article Processing Charges (APCs) to publish your article Open Access.

Additionally, all corresponding authors from an institution participating in ACM OPEN will have their research articles published OA at the time of publication at no cost to the authors.  Click here for a list of participating institutions. To ensure eligibility for the program, corresponding authors from participating institutions must use their institutional email address upon submission.

Language Services

ACM has partnered with International Science Editing (ISE) to provide language editing services to ACM authors. ISE offers a comprehensive range of services for authors including standard and premium English language editing, as well as illustration and translation services, and also has significant outreach in China. Editing is available for both Word and LaTeX files. As an ACM author, you will receive a generous discount on ISE editing services. To take advantage of this partnership, visit the Dedicated ACM Editing Service. (Editing services are at author expense and do not guarantee publication of a manuscript.)

Author-izer Service

Once your manuscript is published, this service allows you to generate and post a link on your home page or institutional repository to your published article. This link will let any visitors to your personal bibliography pages download the definitive version of the articles for free from the ACM DL. These downloads will be recorded as part of your DL usage statistics. A detailed description of the service and instructions for its use may be found at the ACM Author-Izer Service page.

LaTeX Collaborative Authoring Tool on Overleaf Platform

ACM has partnered with https://www.overleaf.com/, a free cloud-based, authoring tool, to provide an ACM LaTeX authoring template. Authors can easily invite colleagues to collaborate on their document. Among other features, the platform automatically compiles the document while an author writes, so the author can see what the finished file will look like in real time. Further information can be found at https://www.acm.org/publications/authors/submissions. The ACM LaTeX template on Overleaf platform is available to all ACM authors https://www.overleaf.com/gallery/tagged/acm-official#.WOuOk2e1taQ.

Kudos Article Sharing Platform

Kudos is a free service that you can use to promote your work more effectively. After your paper has been accepted and uploaded to the ACM Digital Library, you'll receive an invitation from Kudos to create an account and add a plain-language description. The Kudos “Shareable PDF” allows you to generate a PDF to upload to websites, such as your homepage, institutional repository, preprint services, and social media. This PDF contains a link to the full-text version of your article in the ACM DL, adding to download and citation counts.

Author Gateway

Please be sure to visit the ACM Author Portal for additional important author information.

Contact Us

For further assistance and questions regarding the journal editorial review process and paper assignment to an issue, contact the journal administrator ([email protected]).